Julius Popper

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Julius Popper
Juli0 Popper.jpg
Julius Popper
Born(1857-12-15)December 15, 1857
Bucharest, Romania
DiedJune 5, 1893(1893-06-05) (aged 35)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
NationalityRomanian, Argentine
Other namesJulio Popper

Julius Popper (December 15, 1857 – June 5, 1893), also known in Spanish as Julio Popper (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈxuljo poˈpeɾ]),[citation needed] was an Ottoman-born Romanian-Argentine engineer, adventurer, and explorer.[1] Popper was one of the perpetrators of the genocide against the native Selk'nam people.

He was known as a modern "conquistador" of Tierra del Fuego in southern South America, and was a controversial and influential figure. He may have produced plans for the modern outline of the city of Havana, Cuba.[2][3]

Life[]

See also: Tierra del Fuego Gold Rush
Julius Popper posing over a dead Selk'nam killed during fight in 1886
5-gram gold coin
1891 stamp by Popper

Popper was born in 1857 to a Jewish family in Bucharest, Romania, son of professor Neftali Popper, a prosperous antiques merchant, and his wife Peppi. He studied in Paris, gaining credentials as an engineer.

After working in Europe for several years, he took a job working on the infrastructure for the telegraph in Chile. He arrived in Argentina in 1885, where he became attracted by the possibility of gold mining in Tierra del Fuego. In 1886 he received a permit from the Argentine Government to form an exploration company to mine for gold near San Sebastián. On September 7, he led an 18-man expedition that included a chief engineer, a mineralogist, a journalist and a photographer. They found gold dust on the beach of El Páramo, in San Sebastián Bay. The expedition was rigorously and strictly enforced according to military standards with heavily armed men, with Popper in direct command of everything.

During the expedition, Popper and his men were allegedly attacked by eighty Selk'nam (Ona) armed with bows. The adventurers responded by firing their Winchester rifles, killing all but two of the Selk'nam. After the fight, Popper "posed his men in the attitude of troops repelling a charge, took a position himself astride one of the dead Indians, and then had the outfit photographed for subsequent use."[4]

Popper succeeded in unearthing large amounts of gold and his Compania de Lavaderos de Oro del Sud realized enormous capital gains on the Argentine stock exchange. A mint built to manage the gold was adapted as a museum in 1973,  [es] ("Museum of the End of the Earth"), officially the Museo Territorial (Territorial Museum) of Tierra del Fuego since 1979.

In Patagonia, Popper maintained dominance with his private army. He issued his own coins and stamps to symbolize his power. When the Argentine peso lost its value in the market crash of 1890, his gold coins were regarded as currency.

Popper vigorously fought against his enemies; he punished gold diggers and thieves according to arbitrary law. The most controversial aspect of his life was his participation in the Selk'nam genocide against the native communities on Tierra del Fuego. Sheep farmers and gold miners fought against them; the former because the Selk'nam would hunt sheep in their former territories and the latter because of conflicts over mining areas. Together with other bounty hunters, who were paid to kill the Selk'nam, Popper too sent his armed forces to manhunt them.[5][6]

Popper also prepared an expedition to enforce the Argentine claim for parts of Antarctica.

After his sudden death in Buenos Aires at the age of 35, his empire collapsed. The cause of his death has not been established. Contemporary American journalist John R. Spears says that he was poisoned by "men whom he had offended in the south."[7]

In fiction[]

  • wrote a novel about Popper's life called Popper – la Patagonia del oro.
  • Patricio Manns features him as one of the main characters of his novel, El Corazón a Contraluz (1996).
  • wrote a novel about his grandgranduncle in romanian called "Estrellita si regele tarei de Foc" (1992).
  • He was played by Cuban actor Jorge Perugorría in the film Tierra del Fuego (2000), where he appears as a Romanian Orthodox man working for Queen Carmen Sylva of Romania.
  • Popper figures in the back-story to the short story "Tierra del Fuego" by Francisco Coloane, on which the film was based.
  • In a play written by Céline Monsarrat, La mère de la mariée, his story is briefly but accurately explained, and emotionally described.

References[]

  1. ^ Michael, Thomas; Cuhaj, George (2009). Standard Catalog of World Gold Coins. Krause Publications. p. 80. ISBN 978-1440204241.
  2. ^ Alem, Leandro N. "Julius Popper – El Emperador de la Patagonia". Taringa! (in Spanish).
  3. ^ Ansel 1970 quotes: "He further maintains that Popper drew up some kind of "plan" for the city of Havana in 1884." "He" means Lewin, Boleslao (1967). Popper, un conquistador patagónico [Popper, a Patagonian Conquistador] (in Spanish). Buenos Aires. p. 13.
  4. ^ Spears, John Randolph (1895). The Gold Diggings of Cape Horn. G. P. Putnam's Sons. p. 11.
  5. ^ Odone, C. and M.Palma, "La muerte exhibida fotografias de Julius Popper en Tierra del Fuego", in Mason and Odone, eds, 12 miradas. "Culturas de Patagonia: 12 Miradas: Ensayos sobre los pueblos patagonicos", Cited in Mason, Peter. 2001. The Lives of Images, P.153
  6. ^ Ray, Leslie (2007). Language of the Land: The Mapuche in Argentina and Chile. Copenhagen: IWGIA (International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs). pp. 80, 207. ISBN 978-879156337-9.
  7. ^ Spears, John R. (1895). The Gold Diggings of Cape Horn: A Study of Life in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia. New Rochelle, NY: Putnam's Sons. p. 10.

Further reading[]

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